Bjork dislikes cameras, phones

IF YOU plan to see singer-songwriter Bjork perform at The Big Day Out, be warned : leave your cameras and phones at home - they cause the Icelander angst.

Bjork, who has just completed a tour of South America, says she has noticed a new trend at her concerts and it’s one she doesn’t like.

"I don’t want to be rude or anything, I understand they come to the show and they want to keep a memory, I appreciate that. But after two or three songs I just have to say, ’Listen, if you want me to be here in the moment with you, then you’ve got to be, too’.

"It sounds weird but I really have to feel that we’re doing it together."

The objection has nothing to do with fear the clips will end up on YouTube but about the performance itself.

"A live concert is all about being there in the moment. You just have to let go."

Bjork, 41, says her tour is the most "theatrical full-on thing I’ve done so far and probably will ever do".

Fans had better be quick to catch her, as Bjork says the next few years will be quiet, with her daughter due to start school after the tour ends.

This tour, like all Bjork’s tours, is different from the others.

"The last tour was really low volume, performed mostly in opera houses and the songs were very pretty and delicate and sweet.

"Now it’s kind of primitive, raw, almost butch.

"It’s probably the most male hormone tour I’ve ever done."

However, Bjork says with 40 songs on her set list which she rehearses, the line-up can be random.

"I try to take in the place, the moment, what mood everybody is in, what shape the room is, what’s going to sound good.

"Part of that is to stop me from going insane, so you don’t have to play the same show over and over again."

Finding a balance between touring and recording has been difficult and time-consuming.

"The first two albums, I would spend a couple of months making a record and then 1½ years touring and I felt after a while that that was just silly.

"So now I spend a year and a half, two years making a record and then half a year touring it and that seems to me justifiable."

This is the first time Bjork has sat with a fashion designer months in advance and told them all about the tour so she could have a suitably matching wardrobe.

"Every tour is different and this one is quite theatrical, more theatrical than many of my others.

"I guess I’m just feeling adventurous and wanting to get out into the world and taking it on and having adventures."

The sudden need to inject some maleness into this tour has its origins in her album Medulla.

"I did most of it in my house while breastfeeding, it was sort of about domestic bliss.

"I guess after doing that for a couple years I got a bit of cabin fever . . . I had to go out and have adventures and this tour was fuelled by that emotion."

Bjork likes mixing things up and is just as happy "going to really quiet shows in chapels and then you can go to a club in the middle of the night where everyone’s just sweating it".

The singer intends to keep singing and performing but beyond that she has no expectations.

"As long as you keep in touch with where you are at any given time and as long as I can keep it in touch with what I’m doing then I’ve got no plans to stop."

However she can’t promise what format her creative outlet may take.

"It may be I only take one person at a time and play my songs for them."